


To Think This Man Could Change So Much

by IllyanaA



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 09:09:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5737873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllyanaA/pseuds/IllyanaA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been years since she's seen him, and quite frankly, it's a pleasant surprise.  Who would have thought that the machine could grow a heart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Think This Man Could Change So Much

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short thing that I needed to write because I know where series 4 is going, and I don't like it.  
> So let's just pretend that this is how it's going down, shall we?  
> Unbeta'd. All mistakes mine.

Sally Donovan hasn’t seen him in years. Well, she hasn’t seen him outside of the news or the papers. Honestly, she’s quite glad. He annoys her to no end, and any guilt she may have had over causing his “suicide” was quickly overcome as soon as she had heard that he’d faked his death. John Watson cares for him—no matter how much she can’t comprehend that—and to do that to someone you consider a friend…Well, maybe he is a _sociopath._

Of all the places for her to run into him again, a playground was not high up on her list of locations, and yet, there he is, waiting on a bench on the opposite side of the grounds. He’s wearing that same coat and blue scarf, and she’s about to gather up her son and get out of here before something goes wrong before she notices. He’s not watching. He’s waiting.

So she leaves her son to play a little longer, staring intently at the man she has loathed for so long. To her surprise, his face lights up seemingly out of nowhere. There is a car pulling into the car park, and as soon as the car has stopped, a young girl comes bursting out of it. She’s a cute little thing, blonde haired, wearing a blue dress and leggings. Sally isn’t surprised to see John Watson stepping out of the car after her, nor is she surprised to see a woman alongside him. No, what surprises her are the words that leave that little girl’s mouth.

“Uncle Sherlock!”

The man stands up and kneels down when she reaches him, rushing into his arms and wrapping her smaller ones around his neck.

“Hello, Darling. How are you? Doing well in school?”

She nods emphatically. “I learnt to read!”

“Have you now?” He says standing, a grin on his face. He reaches out with a finger and playfully taps her nose. “That’s my girl.”

John and his—girlfriend? Wife?—reach the two of them now. John shaking his head as he gives his daughter a light scolding. “Elizabeth, you know better than to run off like that!”

“Calm down, John,” the woman says. “Sherlock wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.”

“Mary, we have to instill—” He turns to look back at Sherlock, and so Sally’s eyes follow his, and they spot the detective being led by the hand over to the swings. She watches on, amazed, as Sherlock helps her get sat on the swing and begins to push her. He looks so _normal_ , so happy, to be doing something as…well…ordinary as pushing a child on a swing.

They must be talking, because every now and again she’ll see him laugh, and her laugh, and look over at the parents to see them smiling on the nearby bench.

As the day wears on, Elizabeth tires, and joins the adults on the benches nearby. She raises her arms up to Sherlock, who wordlessly picks her up, and she settles on his chest. Sally walks over to collect her son, wondering if that little one will have to endure lectures on Chemistry, or have to bring home potential suitors to face both the wrath of John Watson _and_ Sherlock Holmes. But right now, she doesn’t think it matters. Because when the three of them stand, Elizabeth is soundly asleep in her “Uncle’s” arms, and he folds his coat over both of them in cold.

The three of them walk back to the car together, and Sally can’t help but admit that she was wrong.

John Watson shouldn’t have stayed away from Sherlock Holmes, because he is, after all, the person that made him human.


End file.
